


Cold Comfort (Can Be Wonderful)

by Darth_Nonie



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Gen, Gross, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury (canonical), Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-30
Updated: 2003-12-30
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Nonie/pseuds/Darth_Nonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, cold can be the most wonderful comfort in the world.</p><p>SPOILERS for final season episode "Dirty Girls", where Caleb shows Xander a new point of view.</p><p>Non-canonical: Spike's still got his control chip, and Xander's got a fever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Comfort (Can Be Wonderful)

It was so hot. Xander was lying on his back, pouring sweat and the sun kept burning harder and he just didn't understand why Steve was drilling out his eye with the jackhammer, because wasn't Steve fired the other day for hitting the foreman? It was the larger jackhammer, the bright yellow one with the red and white reflective tape peeling off just below the handle, and its tip was still gritty with concrete dust. He could feel each bit of sand and cement rasping against his eyelid as the hammer battered deeper, and the sweat burned everywhere it touched.

"Would you clean the goddamned jackhammer!" he tried to say, but instead of his manly working-man voice, it came out a wimpy mumble, and he realized they'd filled his mouth with hot tar and gravel and pigeon feathers. And the jackhammer lifted away from his eye and he saw the steel beam coming down as the guys lowered it towards the drilled socket.

It wasn't just an I-bar; it had a crossbeam already bolted on. Of course; he was going to be the foundation of a cross. A memorial, a war memorial, gravestone, gravesteel. Who was it for? The sun was in his good eye, burning hot, and he couldn't see the name on the cross. 

Besides, there was something in the way, some old junk tangled where the beams met, a tattered old garbage bag caught on the bolts. No, it wasn't tattered; it was whole and full of something and then it started to drip on him, fiery welding sparks of blood falling into his eye, falling from the opening bag, no, don't make me see this! and it wasn't a bag opening, it was the gaping wound under Buffy's pink midriff blouse, and from inside her cute tummy big hands ripped her further open and Caleb's bloody face grinned down at him and he screamed and screamed.

"Wotcher, mate," the foreman said, and then blessed cold at last, the first turf coming down on his forehead, cool dirt so soothing and gentle and blocking out the ugly sight and the rain of fire. "Wakey-wakey."

And then he slipped under the surface of the black icy water in utter relief, and all the fire was gone and there was no pain, except where the shark was tearing at his eye. The shark circled around him, and its cold side slapped against his cheek with the motion of the waves. Its voice was faint and distant. "Wake up, Xander, you bloody pillock."

What the fuck was a pillock. And why would a shark care. Maybe a kind of fish like pollack, whatever that was. Fish glittering through the water around him, bright like sparks of fire streaming up from the campfire, like stars at night, a bleached-white moon above him, and the night wind so wonderfully cold against his forehead but a comet fell and fell and fell into his eye, burning.

"Right." And the moonlight spilled over him, soft and strong like the touch of pale hands, needfully cool against his forehead, his cheeks, the back of his neck and the aching muscles of his shoulders. "Enough of this. Wake up or I'll sell you to Angel for a sex slave."

"Kill the bastard!" Xander yelled, and woke up.

Spike grinned at him. "I'll hold him down for you. You awake?"

Gene Wilder upside down in a jail cell. "--Let's play chess!" he muttered, and then raised one hand to ward off Spike's slap. "I'm awake, dammit!"

And his upraised hand had an IV taped to it, and a faint trace of the rune Willow had drawn on it in olive oil and ashes, and he vaguely remembered that neither of them had done any good. Willow had been crying.

And god, his eye hurt. His not-eye. His eyelessness. Ought to be a title. "And now, His Eyelessness King Alexander of the Sunny Dale." Crowned with thorns and molten steel that dripped into his eye and burned.

Spike's hand was on his forehead again, and in total gratitude for the cold he opened his eye and stayed awake.

"I don't feel good," he said, with the petulant satisfaction of a sick child.

"Bloody right you don't," said Spike. "Have they told you you're dying yet?"

His face went in and out of focus as Xander blinked. "I can't be dying. Buffy wouldn't let me."

"Yeah, well, you haven't been listening to her, have you."

"Oh."

"They dunno if it's a spell or Caleb hadn't washed his hands, but they've been digging through the books for a couple of days now and finding sweet fanny adams." Spike pulled his palm away from Xander's face to inspect a cracked fingernail.

"And here's me happy not knowing this," said Xander. "So you just had to tell me why?"

"To get your attention, mate."

Xander rolled his eyes. Eye. And hey, pain happened.

A lot of pain.

"Okay," he said. "You can have my attention. It's all yours. Attention city. All for the low, low price of an icebag."

"Hot, mate? 'S the bloody infection. And they say it's spreading to your other eye, but don't worry, you won't live long enough to go blind."

"Imagine my relief. Dammit, I want an icebag." Because it really was too hot, and he closed his eyes and heard the blast furnace beginning to roar as the vat of molten steel tilted toward him, burning gold trembling at the rim just over his face.

And then the furnace faded as the cold hands touched him again. Icy fingers rubbed his aching temples and combed through his sweat-soaked hair, and he turned his head towards the source of comfort and purred.

"Right, then. You with me, mate?"

"Do my neck again," said Xander, and discovered that embarrassment must have been one of the first things the infection burned out of him. He opened his eyes again to stay in the room as those long, clever hands worked at the base of his skull, sending a delightful shiver from the top of his head to the base of his spine. "O God, that feels good. I'd offer to suck your dick, but it'd probably hurt my fillings and I don't know where it's been."

For an almost dead guy, he was doing pretty good, because Spike stood bolt upright with a choking noise before covering it with a snort and reaching for a cigarrette.

"Uh-uh," said Xander. "Hands. You want my attention, that's the deal." 

Spike cupped Xander's jaw with both palms as he worked those magic icicles behind Xander's ears. "Better?"

"Mmmm."

There was a moment of silence.

Xander wasn't good at silence.

"So. Dying. Really?"

"Oh, yeh. Infection, fever, bad evil magic woo-woo, terminal dandruff."

"Hey!"

Spike snickered, and with an elaborate flourish, leaned down to kiss Xander on the brow. Cold, wonderful cold.

"Ick, vampire cooties! --Do that again. Mmm, comfy. And tell me why you wanted me awake."

Spike didn't kiss him again, thank God, but his thumbs rubbed and rubbed the spot and sent their cool messages deep into his aching head. "Buffy."

"She wants to see me?"

"She's been. A lot. And she's not taking it too well, mate. Your booklifter finally slipped her a mickey so she could sleep."

"Giles? Really?"

"'Quite.'"

"Shoulders."

"What? Oh, right. 'Ere you go."

"So if I'm dying, I don't have all night. Get to the point."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Buffy's the point. She needs you. Caleb's winning, you're dying, and she's bloody well falling apart."

"And?"

"And so I've got a choice for you."

Xander closed his eyes, eye, and Spike's thumb smoothed coolness into the closed lid. "Why do I think I'm not going to like this?"

"Well, it's up to you, mate. But I ordered another bloody Orb of Thesulah, and it's on its way."

"What? I don't-- Oh, like the thing we got Angel's soul back with?"

"Yeh." 

The fingers rubbed his temples again, and he wanted to moan with gratitude. "Spike, if you turn me, Buffy will kill you."

"Like that's new. Give her somebody to hate besides herself and she'll be okay."

"Yeah. And you're willing to die for that."

"Love's bitch, 's me. So what's your choice, mate?"

"Spike, if you take your hands away one more time, I'm going to die just to spite you."

"And if not?" Wonderful cool touch on the back of his neck again, fingers untying the knots of pain down his spine. And the thumbs, brushing lightly against his pulse points, and he could hear Spike actually start to breathe.

"Let's do it."

"Stay with me then, Xander. Stay awake. This bloody control-chip'll take my head off, so the least you can do is enjoy watching it."

Xander grinned. "Oh, I can do better than that. But only on one condition. Two."

And maybe it was worth dying just to see Spike totally floored as Xander explained. "What the hell?"

Xander grinned some more.

"'Ere, just what do you have in mind, you pansy?"

"I am Manly Man, and your insults cannot reach me. Scaredy-cat." Oh, this was feeling like a better idea by the minute.

"Hey! Am not!"

"Are too. Scaredy, scaredy, scaredy-cat!"

"Right, then, I'll show **you**."

And Xander kept his eye open, even though the fire threatened to come back when Spike let go of him, because it was no fun if he couldn't watch Spike's face as the vampire shucked his coat. "Spike, are you blushing?"

"Shut up." And the shirt came up over his bleached head, and Xander kept his eyes on Spike's and grinned wider.

"I'm not taking me trousers off, mind."

"Good."

"Hey!"

And with extreme reluctance, the bare-chested vampire climbed warily in under the covers and Xander burrowed against the wonderful cool of him. The vampire squirmed in discomfort, which made it all even better.

"And the eye."

"Bloody pervert." But those hands were on his bandages now, and he ignored the gut-twisting pain as the gauze tried to cling to his wounded socket. "Xander--"

"Do it!"

And Spike made a revolted noise and the brush of his lips numbed the pain of contact, and Xander convulsed with pain and ecstacy as Spike's tongue rasped in and cooled the torn flesh at last. So wrong, so horrible and so good and Xander could feel all his fevered body letting go.

Spike shuddered and shuddered again, his face hardening against Xander's cheek, and Xander heard him gagging as he pulled away.

"Gotcha," said Xander smugly. "Give me the knife."

"I'll get you for this!"

"Good. That's the plan. The knife, already."

And it was silly to wonder what he could catch from the filthy jacknife Spike used to clean his nails, but Xander gave a fastidious sniff before he used it. 

And thank God that Spike didn't have body heat, so the blade was its own cold comfort as Xander cut the vein to let the fire out, and Spike pulled him closer and burrowed into his neck for the nummy treat Xander always knew he was.

No body heat. Xander looked forward to that. It should be fun.

=============================================

**Author's Note:**

> Written for our beloved womble Jessica when she was ill.


End file.
